Fitting air conditioning in a car

zain

My car is without air con but otherwise a good car. Does anyone know if it is relatively cheap to get air con fitted? Is it possible?
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Little_John

I doubt that there is a package you can go and buy from halfords but I would like to think if you go to the local dealer they can advise you on the best way to do it, after all it is usually an optional extra on most cars.

I wish my van had it today, it was warm on the M1 earlier

Pink.

Hi zain,

You should get more help with this on the motoring board, so I'll move your thread over there.

Pink

wazza

what car do you drive. if you know that a higher spec of your model has air conditioning you might pick one up from the scrap yard and have it fitted. this way you know the system is made for your model and should fit without any problems.

highguyuk

Thats a good tip from wazza.

Alternatively, you could try and get an better fan running off your ciggy lighter ... would be a cheaper option anyway ...

wazza

highguyuk wrote:

Thats a good tip from wazza.

Alternatively, you could try and get an better fan running off your ciggy lighter ... would be a cheaper option anyway ...

i have seen battery powered fans with water bottle attachment. it sprays a mist of water in front of fan. refreshing

zain

thanks for you ideas.. I am after the cheapeat option. Unfortunately, i did not go for a cheap car, its six years old and a mercedes a class classic ( Don't recommend btw). I was thinking of trading it in but doesn't seem to be worth it right now. I like the idea of plugging something in - anyone seen one of these?

Jorgan_2

It would probably be more cost effective to upgrade to a similar car with air con already fitted. Trying to retro fit air con to a car can be expensive. As far as plug in fans go, try your local car spares place for fans, alternativley try a local caravan suppliers, they usually sell accesories such as caravan heaters/coolers, may provide more efficient cooling than just a fan moving the warm air round.

Steevo25

I enquired about the same thing for my Mondeo. I was presented with 2 options. Firstly there was a company in Surrey ( can't remember the name now ) that would fit an aftermarket air con system to my Mondeo. The cost was £1125 + VAT. The second option was to get the complete air con and heating system from a scrapyard. I decided I would have a go at the second option. I found a scrappy that had exactly the same model as me and purchased the full heating and air con system. It cost me £150. Two weeks later and numerous attempts to fit it made me give up. There was so many special tools required and huge chunks or wiring to install. The whole dashboard had to come out and the whole dashboard loom had to be replaced. In the end I got a mechanic friend of mine to help. It took 3 weekends in total and a lot of hard work. Then I had to get an air conditioning engineer to re-gas it and check it for leaks.

I am glad I did it, but would never ever do it again. I still have the car and the air con works perfectly. Unless you are really up for a challenge or have some money to burn then don't even start as you really will regret it once you have started. I was told that the Mondeo was a fairly easy one to convert when compared to a lot of other cars. Essentially, the whole heater matrix is different for air con. Usually all the fixing brackets are there under the bonnet ( well they were on mine ), but none of the wiring, fuses and relays will be.

tomstickland

Scrap yard option is the most cost effective, but only if you're up for some serious spannering. Live without or sell and buy car with is the best way though.

trigger_mike

i would of thought you would of had to hange the alternator as well as air con sucks more amps.
When i sold car parts their was always a choce if the car had air con or not as the alternator would be differnet, and dearer!